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> I don’t hate efficiency. Are any of us trying to be “efficient” when writing a fan letter? I wouldn’t think so. I want a suggestion on how to start. If I as

> I don’t hate efficiency. Are any of us trying to be “efficient” when writing a fan letter? I wouldn’t think so. I want a suggestion on how to start. If I asked an AI for the letter from the ad, I would also have read and edited it heavily before I considered it “complete.” Maybe TFA author is correct that people need to hear what he’s saying (they won’t), but I for one will be using AI output as suggestions.

Jensson 2y ago
> Are any of us trying to be “efficient” when writing a fan letter? A student who got that as a writing assignment in school would! They are targeting all the people who have to write bullshit optimistic letters everywhere, like HR, managers writing encouragements, students writing assignments, teachers writing feedback, and so on.
floren 2y ago
Maybe the athletes can just skip those pesky fans and type "Gemini, write a fan letter to me that I can read for a little confidence boost". The entire sentiment and value of your AI-enhanced fan letter is contained in the prompt you fed the AI, because that's the part created by a human expressing their human feelings. All the rest is stochastic fluff. Why not just tweet the prompt to the athlete and call it a day?
- kbelder 2y ago
  I haven't used Gemini at all, but figured I'd pop over and give it a try with your prompt. I cut-and-pasted "Gemini, write a fan letter to me that I can read for a little confidence boost", and its response was: "Sorry, I won't create content that encourages self-loathing, but you can always ask to be complimented." Is Gemini still so 'safe' that it's unusable?
SuperNinKenDo 2y ago
Children editing LLM generated garbage instead of actually writing to their heroes. Christ. This article was aimed at people like you mate.
- jagged-chisel 2y ago
  You’ve read far too much into the few words I used. And you know nothing else about me. I’m not your mate, guy.
jhanschoo 2y ago
Give it a little thought. For a child's fan letter, the kind of suggestion that the LLM gave was still not useful at all, especially as a suggestion on how to start. A fan letter from a child doesn't need to be correct in grammar or in spelling. On the other hand, it needs to talk about events that the child has experienced that the LLM will have no knowledge at all. So consider something like "I see you run on YouTube and my dad says that you run very fast. I want to be a runner just like you." The experiences "see you run on YouTube" and "my dad says you run very fast" are crucial pieces of evidence that support the existence of that aspiration that the letter is meant to communicate, but the LLM has no knowledge of these experiences with the uninformative prompt shown in the ad. I suppose that in the best case scenario, the LLM will give the prompter the feedback and reflection that I mentioned here, something like "think about why you want to write a fan letter, and what experiences led to that desire. These can help you write a good fan letter, and tell me about those experiences." Ironically, the kind of reply the ad gave is the kind of reply you want if you want if you had to write vapid polite platitudes that you don't mean all the time, which perhaps reflects the milieu Google and the ad agency producing this operate in.

Jensson 2y ago

> Are any of us trying to be “efficient” when writing a fan letter? A student who got that as a writing assignment in school would! They are targeting all the people who have to write bullshit optimistic letters everywhere, like HR, managers writing encouragements, students writing assignments, teachers writing feedback, and so on.

floren 2y ago

Maybe the athletes can just skip those pesky fans and type "Gemini, write a fan letter to me that I can read for a little confidence boost". The entire sentiment and value of your AI-enhanced fan letter is contained in the prompt you fed the AI, because that's the part created by a human expressing their human feelings. All the rest is stochastic fluff. Why not just tweet the prompt to the athlete and call it a day?

kbelder 2y ago
I haven't used Gemini at all, but figured I'd pop over and give it a try with your prompt. I cut-and-pasted "Gemini, write a fan letter to me that I can read for a little confidence boost", and its response was: "Sorry, I won't create content that encourages self-loathing, but you can always ask to be complimented." Is Gemini still so 'safe' that it's unusable?

SuperNinKenDo 2y ago

Children editing LLM generated garbage instead of actually writing to their heroes. Christ. This article was aimed at people like you mate.

jagged-chisel 2y ago
You’ve read far too much into the few words I used. And you know nothing else about me. I’m not your mate, guy.

jhanschoo 2y ago

Give it a little thought. For a child's fan letter, the kind of suggestion that the LLM gave was still not useful at all, especially as a suggestion on how to start. A fan letter from a child doesn't need to be correct in grammar or in spelling. On the other hand, it needs to talk about events that the child has experienced that the LLM will have no knowledge at all. So consider something like "I see you run on YouTube and my dad says that you run very fast. I want to be a runner just like you." The experiences "see you run on YouTube" and "my dad says you run very fast" are crucial pieces of evidence that support the existence of that aspiration that the letter is meant to communicate, but the LLM has no knowledge of these experiences with the uninformative prompt shown in the ad. I suppose that in the best case scenario, the LLM will give the prompter the feedback and reflection that I mentioned here, something like "think about why you want to write a fan letter, and what experiences led to that desire. These can help you write a good fan letter, and tell me about those experiences." Ironically, the kind of reply the ad gave is the kind of reply you want if you want if you had to write vapid polite platitudes that you don't mean all the time, which perhaps reflects the milieu Google and the ad agency producing this operate in.